City of Warsaw

Welcome to Warsaw – the capital of Poland. This city will surprise you with its look and inspire with its atmosphere. It`s full of contrasts: a historical building can stand next to a modern one, a neo renessaince palace can be surrounded by soviet style blocks. You can like it, or not, from an aesthetic point of view; but it’s a living illustration of Warsaw’s difficult 700 year history of invasions, imperial partitions, world wars, occupations, and communist regimes, and the last 25 years of the city’s economic transformation into a modern European Capital.

You will find astonishing examples of architecture: Baroque, Classicism and many neo-styles here but most of all – Warsaw is a city of Modernism. From the beginning of 20th century, through nineteen-twenties and thirties, as Warsaw was expanding far beyond the city center influenced by the newest architecture and urban world trends which survived the war. Today a modernist house built in the nineteen-thirties can be more authentic than the Royal Castle constructed in the Baroque period but had to be rebuilt in the nineteen-seventies and eighties after its destruction during the second war. The architectural style that makes Warsaw much different from Western European cities is socialist realism. The finest example of that you will see in the city center: The Palace of Culture and Science, a symbol of the city, Stalin`s, loved or hated, “gift.”

You can find Varsovians missing their pre-war capital that was near completely destroyed during World War II. That feeling of loss in my opinion is a part of Warsaw`s identity, representing a proud city which never surrendered. After the second war Varsovians returned here to ruins and rebuild.

Nowadays Warsaw is a very dynamic, quickly developing city full of young people and positive energy. This is the city I want to show you and I can guarantee – you will see things from a different perspective than what you might have imagined or expected.